Life: A Progress Report
by whatsthatriff
Summary: Willow is having one of those days... Post-Chosen, Will/Ken, slice of life type thing.


There have been a lot of good Willow stories on fanfiction lately, and while this story doesn't compare I figured I wrote it so I might as well share it. Sorry if it's slow.

If Willow was being honest with herself—which she wasn't—she enjoyed addiction. The surge of desire, the anticipation of release, the consuming need, all motivation far stronger than she could artificially contrive. On languid days like this, reading while Kennedy does laps in the pool, the familiar urge crawls back into her skin and she cannot shake the feeling that without addiction her life is purposeless. Untrue, she reminds herself. I have Kennedy, Buffy, Xander, Dawn, hell the entire fragile world to watch out for. I save lives daily. But still the desire lingers, as she knows it will until the next apocalypse or big bad. She catches herself hoping for impending doom as a distraction, that the next phone call will be Giles requesting her presence immediately "before it's too late." But it is never too late, and when Willow returns home addiction is waiting in her room, ready to pounce in a spare moment of idle thought.

"Time?" Kennedy breaks into her reflection, slightly out of breath and bobbing at the far end of the pool.

"What? Oh, I didn't know you wanted me to time you. Here," Willow fishes out her cell phone. "Okay, sorry. Start over in T minus—"

"No, I mean what time is it." Kennedy shoves off the wall and begins to swim toward her. "I'm supposed to help Buffy set up for training."

Willow idly wonders if she can turn back time. Or at least travel through it. Would her current memories remain? If time wasn't restricted to a unilateral direction, no matter how confusing remembering the future might be…but would she, even if she could?

"I can only conclude you're trying to read that clock's mind." Kennedy smirks gently as she gets out of the pool.

"Sorry." Willow feels a blush starting and mentally shoves it back." My brain has been taking trips on me lately. It's 4:46."

"Dammit," Kennedy mumbles through a towel as she dries her face, "Buffy's going to cut off my head. And thanks to that Surk'han demon I decapitated last week, I have a pretty accurate visual reference."

Willow places a bookmark in her novel. "Don't worry about it. I can get you there in no time." She plasters a grin on her face that she hopes says "I love you, let me help you out" louder than "I need this distraction before I explode."

Kennedy cocks her head slightly as she changes out of her swimsuit and into sweats. "Really? You want to be my magical chauffeur?"

"Sure. I mean, as long as you don't mind an acidy stomach. Only for a bit, though, I promise." Willow stands and sidles next to Kennedy, brushes a strand from her forehead. "Still, if you ask me, a rumbly tummy is worth keeping your head attached to your body."

Kennedy smiles, and Willow is initially shocked by how unguarded her face looks. Of course it is, she chides herself. Not everyone is fighting the gnawing tug of…consummation? Conflagration? What's the word again?

"Sounds pretty worth it to me. Just transport me to a closet or bathroom or something. Don't want to make it too obvious." Kennedy gives Willow a quick kiss and takes two steps back. "Do I need to do anything?"

Willow tries to genuinely smile but something in her face won't work so she settles for a lopsided upturn of the lips. "First, transport? You've been spending too much time with Andrew. Second, I got it all taken care of. Just close your eyes and try to thing non-barfy thoughts."

As Willow draws the strings of her energy Kennedy shuts her eyes and tilts her head back in unconscious mimicry of Willow when she was with Rack. At Rack's, she mentally corrects as Kennedy disappears in a faint snap, not with Rack. She waits for her body to shudder at the thought but it never comes. Perhaps the ennui has penetrated deeper than she thought.

What no one seemed to realize was that neither Rack nor the consequences that followed came as a surprise to Willow. Did they really think she had never read of Rack's kind, never stumbled across dozens of accounts of magick addiction and withdrawal? No, she muses as she packs the pool bag and begins to walk back to their room, the real surprise was the why of it all. How the gradual absence of Tara in a thousand small parts of her day added up to this vacuum of desire that threatened implosion if not satisfied.

But let's be clear, she tells herself, replacing honesty with analysis. All life requires a point, a raison d'etre. For a while, back in high school, academics was filling that void just fine. Unbroken stretches of time that otherwise left her alone with herself could be filled with essays, tutoring, programming, reading. There was no need to lay awake before the dawn, wondering if everyone felt this way, as long as there was a project to get started.

A motif from _Danse Macabre_ filters from the bag to her ears. Cell phone. Giles. A small nugget of hope begins to well inside her before she recognizes it for what it is. She will not wish for doom, she will not wish for doom, she will—"Hey Giles."

"Hello, Willow. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

Well, what did he mean by that? She glances around and finds she's wandered into a parking lot. Which, she's not quite sure.

"Nope, nothing doing. I mean doing nothing. Why, what's up?" After five o'clock, so the sun is in the west, which means she's somewhere…north? She scans the horizon for familiar landmarks.

"I have Kennedy here and she appears to be rather ill at the moment. Buffy found her vomiting in the janitor's closet. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this?"

Willow surprises herself by reviewing her options. She could lie, instruct Kennedy to lie, tell Giles Kennedy is lying, convince Giles there was an emergency, or Kennedy made her do it, or…theoretically the truth but that's hardly appropriate considering she just had to use something like a reverse locator spell to figure out where in the hell she was. Wait, had to or chose to? And which did she hope it was? "Put Kennedy on."

She can tell Giles is surprised at her tone but hopes he chalks it up to concern. Actually, upon further review, she doesn't care at all.

"Willow?"

"Yikes, Ken, I can practically hear the green on your face. Are you okay?" She begins retracing her steps to the room.

"I'll be fine. I just," Kennedy sighs and adjusts the phone, "didn't expect that. Or Buffy to be right there."

A "sorry" dangles in the silence but Willow isn't sure to whom it belongs and so ignore its absence. "Do you need me to come by?"

"No, no." Kennedy says a little too fast. "I'm a big girl. But Giles looks like he wants—"

"Willow?" Giles's voice cuts in. "I'd appreciate it if you could stop by. I've some things I'd like to discuss with you."

Willow imagines the emotion she's supposed to be experiencing is something like being called to the principal's office. "Sure, I'll be right over." She hangs up and realigns her course to Giles's office, wishing she knew if she were in trouble.

Knowing things used to be her specialty. She prided herself on perfection: perfect scores, perfect grades, perfect attendance. But by the end of her senior year the ease of it all began to sap her. Why spend the week studying when two hours the night before would get her the same A+? She dared hope college would be enough of a challenge to pull her out of whatever funk enveloped her when she was quiet and alone, but the grades came just as easily and the motivation to trudge through life began slipping away again.

Funny, she thought, pursing her lips in a decidedly unamused way, how no onenoticed the most revealing moment of her doppelganger's brief visit. "This world's no fun," the vampire had said petulantly, and in a moment of transcending solidarity, before she could control herself, Willow replied "You noticed that too?" It was a brief but startling epiphany that her counterpart shared her secret in a way her closest friends couldn't. That is, until Buffy…

Grades. College. And that naturally leads the conversation to Tara, the savior who came along and inserted herself into all those empty spaces Willow had been lugging about for years, unable to be touched by academia. Suddenly there were no more dangerous hours, no more waiting for the universe to part and expose why exactly she was here on this godforsaken earth. But to be perfectly honest—wait no. To be slightly more clear, Tara herself was not Willow's reason for living. Willow didn't need to be needed, she needed to need, and in those days she needed Tara more than anything. It was as if Tara outshone that looming void, permitted Willow to focus on other, better things. Normal things.

Till magick.

Giles answered after the first knock. "Yes, Willow, come in. Have a seat."

Willow glanced around the room. "Is Kennedy here?"

"No, I sent her back to help with training. She seemed to be feeling better."

Willow sat. Crossed her legs. Tried not to slouch. Giles seems engrossed with something on his desk. "Well," she begins, "I think we can check the awkward silence box."

"Oh, sorry." And he genuinely seems to be. "Late night." He pinches his brow and does not elaborate.

"If you want me to come back later I can. Not that I'm trying to avoid the conversation, I'm doing this new thing where I approach confrontation head on, but if you're tired and I'm tired…" She begins to stand but Giles waves her back down.

"I appreciate your concern, but it's nothing a strong cup of tea won't fix. Now," he pauses, reaches for his glasses then decides against it, "I want to talk to you about Kennedy."

Even if she couldn't travel back in time, who's to say she couldn't speed it up? Skip conversations like this altogether? Much less problematic than traveling backward in time. Whiz by Buffy's lectures and Kennedy's idea of foreplay and cut right to the chase. Though, she notes ruefully, it seems Giles already had.

"…I don't think I'm asking a great deal. Just please be more aware of your actions."

No choice, play the dumb card. Oh wait: anger. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Willow asks with no hint of regret on her face. "I think I misheard you."

"I said you must stop treating Kennedy as if she's unique. I know," he raises his hand to block a nonexistent objection, "she is unique, special, etcetera, but if the other girls get the impression that you're favoring her, we could have something of a mess on our hands."

"Favoring?" Her mouth manages while she represses the feeling of exultation. Could it be he was skipping the whole abuse (to be precise, misuse) of magick altogether?

"I don't see how the other slayers could interpret your personal and expedited means of transportation any other way. And frankly," he leans forward, though not purposefully, "I'm not sure how you thought Kennedy could train in that condition."

Part of Willow wants to defend her thought process while the other is tempted to shift the blame to Kennedy. But mostly she just wants to get out of here. "You're right, I'm sorry, what I did was wrong, I won't do it again." There. All bases covered.

He looks at her curiously. Or is that…compassion? Understanding? "No, I know you won't, and I don't meant to embarrass you. Just be more aware, alright?" Willow places it: tiredness. Or—more correctly—fatigue, coloring his entire face.

"Of course." She stands again. "I'm so aware you could—" She trips over the chair then stares at it deflatedly. "I didn't have an end for that sentence anyway."

Giles's smile somehow makes him look older. "It's alright, Willow. I trust you." He motions vaguely away. "Have a good evening."

Odd, she thinks as she shuts his door, that her analysis of his trust elicits memories of her vampiric counterpart. Then again, why is his trust naïve when she herself is wary of her actions? Like that blush by the pool earlier: do humans really have the mental ability to control biological reactions? Technically, the current theory is that blushing is a psychological manifestation of an evolutionary holdover, so yes, and since today is all about technicalities Willow decides to go with that.

Where was she? Duh, Tara. Always. But with Tara came magick, and the full, all-encompassing need it afforded. Any second of any day she could summon it, and as Tara slipped away, frightened (jealous? the part of her she hates still asks) of the need or the needing, magick came to replace those moments too. But like Tara or the academics before, magick was less about the power than the need for it. And to this day she has not experienced a need as deliciously profound as magick.

Would she have ever told Tara about Rack? One night, her face under the covers, she haltingly recounted the mechanics but she wouldn't—no, couldn't—tell Tara why she still cried in the shower. How the realization that she would do it all again in an ill-advised heartbeat used to terrify her to tears. Not anymore, she though ruefully as she turned her key in the lock. The trick is to accept that at any moment she could revert—

"Wow, didn't expect you to come back with Resolve Face in full force."

Willow's head jerks around. "Ken? What are you doing back?"

Kennedy steps forward from the bed with obvious intention. "I figured Buffy would just assume Giles had one of his extra-long reprimands. He's been doing that a lot lately. And so now I'm here, and you're here." She grabs each of Willow's hands and swings them gently. "You could pretty much say we're here together."

"Reprimand? You were reprimanded?" She can't, for some reason, handle Kennedy right now. The urge to disengage her hands is almost overwhelming. "Are you sure you didn't just mistake him cleaning his glasses for paternal disappointment?"

"No." Kennedy rolls her eyes and releases Willow's hands of her own accord. "There was definite…reprimandness? Whatever, he told me not to take advantage of your powers. Something." Willow wonders if the smile on Kennedy's face could properly be labeled sinister. "But I plan to take advantage of you anyway."

Willow tries to be present for the kiss she knows is coming but all she can think isthat Giles considers her benign. Doesn't he know she could control this world if she wanted? And on days like this she is less and less able to distinguish between want and need. Giles and the rest of them should consider themselves lucky she doesn't use her power more…advantageously.

"Hey, hey," she mumbles around Kennedy's lips. "You want to spice things up?" And this time there is no blush to shove back.

I apologize if the characters and their reactions aren't exactly canon. I tried to get across that Willow is always rambling, even inside her head, because her intelligence allows (almost commands) her to contemplate and evaluate many different scenarios, topics, and words simultaneously. Her thoughts are disjointed and errant because she's having trouble reconciling her internal struggle with the oblivious and comparatively stable external world. Mostly this story was intended to get across the point that not only does Willow have an addictive personality, but with Willow's brain it's unlikely a day goes by she doesn't think about it. Let me know if I succeeded (I'm thinking not quite).


End file.
